Word Counter

What is WordCounter?

Apart from counting words and characters, our online editor can help you to improve word choice and writing style, and, optionally, help you to detect grammar mistakes and plagiarism. To check word count, simply place your cursor into the text box above and start typing. You'll see the number of characters and words increase or decrease as you type, delete, and edit them. You can also copy and paste text from another program over into the online editor above. The Auto-Save feature will make sure you won't lose any changes while editing, even if you leave the site and come back later. Tip: Bookmark this page now.

Knowing the word count of a text can be important. For example, if an author has to write a minimum or maximum amount of words for an article, essay, report, story, book, paper, you name it. WordCounter will help to make sure its word count reaches a specific requirement or stays within a certain limit.

In addition, WordCounter shows you the top 10 keywords and keyword density of the article you're writing. This allows you to know which keywords you use how often and at what percentages. This can prevent you from over-using certain words or word combinations and check for best distribution of keywords in your writing.

In the Details overview you can see the average speaking and reading time for your text, while Reading Level is an indicator of the education level a person would need in order to understand the words you’re using.

When to use a Word Counter?

Online word counting tools have a variety of uses, from helping you check your daily writing goals to meeting assignment requirements to creating viral social media posts.

---

Who needs a word counter?

When counting words, the objective is usually to meet a minimum or a ballpark number, with a few exceptions. Below are some use cases where a word counter would be needed:

Students:

Often, in school or at a university, students will be asked to write a short response to a question or a longer essay. These can range from 250 words to thousands of words.

Besides assignments, students applying for college and graduate school admissions will usually have a target word count for their application essays. Because of the large volume of applications each school receives, maximum word count limitations are usually imposed as well.

For example, a student may be asked for a ~1,000-word personal statement, but the fine print will note a hard limit of 2,000 words.

Writers:

Daily writing goals are important for a serious writer, even at the hobby level. Those looking to make writing a habit or hone their skills often choose to set a daily word count goal, like Neil Gaiman’s 50-words-per-day habit that, slowly but surely, helped him pen Coraline.

Job Seekers:

When crafting cover letters or completing case studies for job applications, meeting a target word count is sometimes required. For example, an applicant may be asked to write a 1,500-word report on a case study to show their knowledge of the market.

Students, Educators, and Researchers:

Research abstracts are one exception where the word count has a strict maximum that is typically difficult to achieve since abstracts often need to summarize years of research into ~300 words.

Another exception where word count maximums are typically used is in grant and scholarship writing. It can be hard for students, educators, and researchers to outline a proposed project or describe their experiences and goals when they have to stick to such strict word limits.

Using a word count tool during the drafting process can help with keeping your writing on track so that, when you begin editing, you aren’t trying to cut an essay in half or add another 1,000 words.

---

How to use the Word Counter?

To use QuillBot’s free online word counter tool, just type or paste in your text, and QuillBot’s Word Counter will instantly calculate the number of words.

When you’re done working on a section of text, use the trash can icon in the top right corner to clear the window for a clean slate.

If you’ve changed or refined the input text to meet a target word count, you can easily download it or copy the updated text to your clipboard using the icons in the bottom right corner.

---

How is QuillBot’s Word Counter different from other word counters online?

QuillBot’s tool will soon become your favorite word count checker for at least one of the following reasons:

See everything you need (and more) at once

The word and character counts are displayed side-by-side, so whether you’re reviewing one or both for your project, there’s no extra clicking, hovering, or changing tabs to see one count or the other.

Plus, you can also see the word count for optimised Facebook posts (250 characters) and the hard limit for Twitter posts (280 characters) displayed right on the page in the bottom right-hand corner.

There’s no clutter.

QuillBot’s Word Counter has a clean, intuitive, and clutter-free interface. You won’t be bothered by pop-ups or noisy ads, and it’s still free.

It’s more than just a word counter.

You might come to QuillBot for the free online word counter, but once you’re here, we bet you’ll stay because of all of the other productivity-enhancing features that our platform offers.